If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

A Senior Newbie

I am a Nikon user and have been for almost 45 years. I have a full film based darkroom and finishing facilities where I can print up to 20x30 prints. I do some 6x6cm with Rollie equipment and 4x5 with a Toyo rail camera. Although I was trained as a photojournalist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, I was a military and commercial pilot before I retired.

I am in the middle of transitioning from film to digital, but I will hold on to my 35mm bodies and lenses for work that would be better shot on film. Although I have a fairly extensive film set up, I only have one Nikon digital SLR body, a couple wireless remote strobes and a single new technology, autofocus, zoom lens.

Although I work primarily with 35mm, I do use 4x5 and enjoy that format very much. I even have an almost mint 4x5 Pacemaker Speed Graphic. A 4x5 Speed Graphic was really the camer I used in high school my junior year. That experience served me well because in the School of Journalism the asst. prof and I were the only ones who knew enough about it to use it for shooting pix of the football games along the sidelines for the dail newspaper and UPI.

Re: A Senior Newbie

Welcome. Perhaps with encouraging from here you'll explore more fully LF. It's the difference between flying a Piper Cub and a triple 7. Grin. Well many be ULF is like a 777. 4x5 is more like a 737-400. Doulbe Grin.

Re: A Senior Newbie

Welcome from Hawaii. I'm glad you decided to join us, this is a pretty good community. I haven't been shooting as long as you have, only about 35 years, but I find my passion for film growning daily - I expect to shoot twice as much film this year as last year.

Re: A Senior Newbie

Welcome aboard! If digital is "fly by wire" then you'll probably find LF is more "fly by cable & pulley held together with nicropress sleeves" I never flew anything more exotic than a PA-18-135 myself, but it sure was fun!

I steal time at 1/125th of a second, so I don't consider my photography to be Fine Art as much as it is petty larceny.

Re: A Senior Newbie

Thanks guys for all of the responses and the encouragement, that's one of the reasons I joined this forum. Although I have the skill set required, I seldom do much 4x5 work. The last serious 4x5 work I did was photographing some violins for a violin makers brochure several years ago, but now that I have the ability to go digital with the 35mm format, I probably will shoot more with the 4x5. I would really like to do some LF B&W pictorials including landscapes and buildings or cityscapes.